“Sounds like a busy day for Dr. Rose,” I snigger.

“I looked unprofessional in front of everyone! I could lose patients over this.”

“And yet you’re blowing up at me instead of, say, the person who’s been calling your office all day?” I pop a bonbon in my mouth and give him a look like Yeah, I make way more sense than you.

“I expect you to be the bigger person! You know Mom doesn’t understand. I tried to tell her she couldn’t call the front desk unless it was an emergency, but everything’s an emergency to my mother.”

He growls, messing up his hair. He’s wearing his navy blazer today and wow, the effect is quite something. His eyes are demon-black, and I’m not hating the whole day’s-worth-of-scruff thing he’s got going on. Nicholas has a very nice jaw; when it’s lightly shadowed like it is now, coupled with the slate-gray frames of his glasses, he reminds me of a tormented English literature professor who’s just hit rock bottom.

I am learning at this very moment in time that tormented English literature professor who’s just hit rock bottom is my specific type. He doesn’t even notice me checking him out because he’s busy hunting for my phone amid a sea of candy wrappers.

The inappropriate timing of my epiphany is classic Naomi Westfield. If Nicholas knew what I was thinking right now he’d get so frustrated with me that he’d probably get on an airplane and leave the country.

“Your first mistake was expecting me to be the bigger person,” I reply. “Deborah gives you shit twenty-four-seven and you shower her with attention. It gets results! You know what doesn’t get results? Being understanding all the time and saying ‘Whatever you need, babe. Walk all over me! Forget I’m even here.’ Being the bigger person gives you permission to put my feelings second every time. I have to be understanding. I have to be patient, and keep my mouth shut while you coddle her. So I’m going to change tactics, because continuing to do what I’ve been doing while expecting different results is stupid. Debbie’s playbook works. Being a whiny pain in the ass works. Maybe I should start calling the front desk, too.”

Look at how well I’ve turned this around on him. Some of my best improv! I think all this fresh forest air and uninterrupted hours for plotting his ruination has beefed up my capacity for evil. I feel divine. Living in the wilderness is truly a form of self-care.

His mouth opens, ready for a retort, but he’s interrupted by a low buzz. My phone’s on silent but I’ve just gotten a notification. We both glance at the mantel where my phone’s plugged into a charger. We both dive.

I’m swaddled in blankets, and the two beats it takes me to detangle are crucial. He’s at the mantel by the time I’m free, and his hand closes over the dark screen. A tiny green light flashes. An email? A text? It could be Print-Rite responding to my application, and the contents of my stomach pitch wildly when I lay out my track record. I’m one hundred percent on nos and zero percent on yesses. You’re promising, but you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time. You’re good, but not good enough.

If I’m a millimeter from hitting my goal, that makes it even worse when I fail. I’d rather hear You weren’t even close. We never considered you for a second. Anxiety kicks in and my brain fractures, thoughts splintering in a hundred directions. I’m drowning in midair and my body burns hot, a physical reaction I have to conceal. It’s a no. It’s always going to be a no.

The odds are not one in ten or fifty-fifty or any ratio I can latch on to optimistically. The odds are this: I’ve most certainly just been rejected by somebody. I can’t let Nicholas see a rejection email. I can’t let him count my failures and recite the number out loud. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to not get the thing you want; he’s one of those people who believe that if you work hard enough, you can have anything.

To him, I’m a thoughtless slacker who doesn’t have enough ambitions to start with, and when I do get an ambition under my skin, I lowball myself to take the sting out of the unavoidable letdown. Underachieving. It’s a mortal sin for a Rose and the root of all my problems. I’m sure they whisper it behind my back.

What he doesn’t know is that I do try, and then hide my failures. It’s one of the reasons why I can’t completely hate him when he makes digs about my not going to college: He doesn’t know I ever tried getting in. He wasn’t there when I shredded the rejection letters, proof that my parents were right and I should have focused more on studying than passing notes in class.

This was before I steeled myself and changed my attitude with the only coping mechanism available. Who wants a degree, anyway? Not me. I’m glad I didn’t go. Look at all these suckers with student loans, in debt up to their eyeballs and no one’s even hiring.

“Give me that!” I scream, kicking him in the back of the knee.

He holds the phone out of my reach. I hate it when he does that, using his height advantage against me. “I’m going to borrow it until I can get a new one. It’s only fair.”

“Give it back!” I jump up, grabbing ineffectively. “That’s mine!”

His mouth purses, suspicious eyes calculating my flushed face and high-pitched voice. “Why are you so scared to let me see your phone?”

“I’m not scared.” He hears the lie, I’m sure of it. “Give it back.” I scrabble desperately, but it’s no use. He’s too tall and I’m trapped in some sort of Benjamin Button cycle—I feel myself getting shorter with every jump. “I mean it, Nicholas. I’m sorry your screen got cracked. I’ll get you a new phone. I’m sorry, okay? Just give it back.”

His expression turns downright lethal. This close up, I see my own terrified face imprinted on each of his pupils, two black mirrors. I see what he’s seeing, and I know what this looks like.

“You just get a message from someone?” His voice is silky. The tip of it is so sharp, it could nick your artery without pressing.

“No. Why would you say that? Give me my phone.” I hold out my palm expectantly and infuse as much authority into the command as possible. “Now.”

His nostrils flare. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Who? What are you talking about?” I shake my head, snapping, “Hand it over! I’m serious. This is my personal property and keeping it from me is illegal.”